


Liddle Lamzy Divey

by Seascribe



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Happy Gay Farmers, Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus is really, truly awful at farming.  Esca tries not to laugh too hard at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liddle Lamzy Divey

Esca knows that Marcus grew up on a farm, that farming runs as much in his blood as soldiering.  And so when he had told Marcus that he did not mind settling down on a little farm of their own, he had expected...well, he had _not_ expected to find Marcus losing his dignity to a gaggle of geese, for one thing.  But to be fair, their fierceness is part of why Esca thought them a good idea.  So he tries very hard not to laugh at Marcus’ wounded pride and does not let it reflect on his opinion of Marcus’ abilities.  

After all, Esca does not know the first thing about running a farm.   It is Marcus who teaches him how to plow a field and shear a sheep and milk a goat.  He suspects most of it Marcus has learned from reading books--Esca has never heard him use such a didactic tone, and assumes him to be quoting Virgil, or another author--but the work gets done, after a fashion.  If the animals do not exactly lie down docilely for Esca, at least they do not seem actively hostile towards him.  For Marcus, it is a different matter. 

“I expect the geese have been giving them ideas,” Marcus mutters direly, still bent over and grimacing after one of the sheep had decided she had had quite enough of this sort of treatment, and given him a good headbutt in the Aquila family pride.  Esca rubs his back and tries very, very hard to keep a straight face.  

It does not go much better with the goats--they have two nanny goats, and the loan of a neighbour’s billy goat for breeding. Esca is glad that there seems to be little enough reason for Marcus to go near it; he does not like the look of its horns.  Marcus, after a little practise, soon is hitting the bucket with nearly every stream of milk, and Esca thinks that surely things are going well enough for him to go find the black nanny and finish up the milking so that they can get on with the rest of the day’s chores.  

But he is scarce out of sight before Marcus yelps and a streak of curses scalds the air.  Esca hears the thump and splash of the milking pail overturning.  He sighs.

“She bit me!” Marcus shows Esca the rend in his tunic.  The skin beneath is not broken, but Esca thinks it will leave a spectacular bruise; he can already see the dark blood pooling.  He pats Marcus on his uninjured arm.  

“I think I have the trick of it well enough,” he says, trying to be diplomatic.  

“No, no, I can finish up,” Marcus insists, swatting the nanny goat’s rump.  “She’s learnt her lesson; it will be fine.”  Privately, Esca thinks that the only lesson the nanny goat has learnt is that Marcus is an easy mark, and perhaps that he makes amusing noises when tortured.  But surely Marcus will be prepared now and can take care of himself.  

It is not the first time that Esca’s confidence in Marcus has been somewhat misplaced.  The tunic is good for little more than rags by the time he comes to join Esca in the field, and even though they are behind schedule, Esca takes pity on him and says, “You should let me doctor those bruises.”  He thinks that Marcus would like to protest, but there is only so much abuse a man can take.  

It looks worse than it is--there are only four or five serious bites, and only one of them has broken the skin.  Esca smooths comfrey ointment over the bruises, and does not ask why Marcus had not tethered the nanny to a post--it was because this time, for certain, things would go well, as they they should, because Marcus _knew what he was doing_.   With anyone else, Esca would be tempted to beat him over the head with the milking pail until he learned some sense.  But he is very fond of Marcus, and so he only kisses him on the forehead and brushes the hay out of his hair.  

Esca counts it a small miracle that the new horses tolerate Marcus; they do not bite him or step on his feet or sidle him menacingly up against the wall. They do not even lay their ears back at him when he grooms them.  In return, Marcus is pathetically free with apples and other treats, delighted that here at least, the world is working exactly the way it is supposed to.  That is, until the day one of their neighbour’s broodmares slips her halter and wrecks havoc in their byre.  

Celer kicks down the gate, and Esca’s gelding and the mules and both nanny goats, disinterested in the broodmare but highly invested in their chance at freedom, bolt after him. It takes the rest of the day to round them all up again, and come evening they still have not found the nanny goats.  

“It is not so bad,” Esca tries to console Marcus, who is still sulking at the damage and cost.  “Ceanatis would have bought the loan of Celer anyway; he will pay for the foal, I am sure.”  Anyway, everything had been Ceanatis’ fault entirely.  

Cub is at the door to their little hut, fretting and pacing, and Marcus comes instantly out of his sulk, alert for something amiss.  Esca twitches back the curtain, and groans.  The nanny goats are not missing at all.  They have overturned the clothes chest and are contentedly munching on something that, at closer inspection, is revealed to be Marcus’ favourite toga.  

“We will use the money from Ceanatis to buy a new one,” Esca says, folding up the tatters of the fine wool and tucking it out of sight.  Marcus has lost a great deal of clothing to the rag box in these last months.  It is no longer a temptation for Esca to laugh at him for it; it would be like laughing at a kicked puppy.  

“Listen, I’m going to go settle them back in the byre, and do the milking.  Why don’t you go have a look in the garden, and get a start on dinner?”  He does not want Marcus to think he is being coddled, but after this kind of day, he cannot cope with Marcus getting himself hurt or otherwise humiliated.  Marcus nods dolefully.  

Esca is congratulating himself on having handled the situation quite well, expecting to find Marcus shelling peas for the pot when he doesn’t see him in the garden.  Instead, Marcus is sitting on the bed, his face white with pain, trying to pull his sandal off of a rapidly swelling ankle without resorting to cutting through the leather.  

“What did you do?” Esca cries, dropping to his knees by the bed and pushing Marcus’ hands away.  He has no compunctions about slicing through the straps biting into the bruised flesh.  

“Turned it on a mole hill,” Marcus grits as Esca’s fingers explore the injury, trying to determine if it is broken or just a bad sprain.  

“My poor Marcus,” Esca sighs. Today has been an ill luck day.  “At least it is not your good leg.  We will wrap it up, and I do not think you should walk on it for several days.”

Marcus tries to protest, but Esca gives him a fierce glare and he obediently lies back and lets Esca prop his bound ankle on a pile of pillows.  It is not even two days before he is trying to hobble around the farm and help Esca with the chores.  But he can’t work in the field, and Esca is not about to let him near any of the animals.  

“I have been meaning to get some rabbits for the winter,” Esca says.  “Go sit by the granary and I will bring you the tools to build them a hutch.”   Marcus is clever with his hands and enjoys a job well done; Esca hopes it will keep him occupied long enough to give his ankle time to heal before he is traipsing about all over and does himself a worse hurt.

Esca trades a few of the goslings for two fat rabbits, their soft fur splotched brown and white.  Rabbits, he thinks, cannot possibly hurt anyone, even Marcus.  And Marcus is quite taken with them; he feeds them by hand sometimes, and when he thinks that Esca is not looking, takes them in his big hands and strokes their floppy ears.  Esca wonders if he has forgotten their purpose, and then he finds out that Marcus has named them--Cinnamomea and Saltus.  This cannot possibly end well.

By the time Marcus is back on his feet, they have made half a dozen little rabbits, and Esca puts his foot down.  

“Marcus.  You can’t name all of them; it will turn your stomach when they are on the table this winter.”   He tells himself that he does not feel guilty for putting that look on Marcus’ face; they aren’t _pets_ \--it is Marcus’ people who came up with this idea in the first place.  Marcus should know better.  

But...after all, these are the only animals on the farm besides Celer and Cub who have not done their best to incapacitate Marcus, even if it is only because they are too fat and soft to do any real damage.  

“Will you feel better if I sell them at market instead?” he asks, and cannot believe himself.

They end up keeping Cinnamomea anyway. 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> I know NOTHING about farming and everything I have learned for the purposes of writing this fic comes from a quick and dirty googling and the relevant Wikipedia article. So if you do happen to know things about farming and would like to correct me, please feel free! (I do know that boy rabbits can be downright punks if left intact, but I am pretending that Marcus got lucky with Saltus)
> 
> The title is from a nursery song.


End file.
